The UKARI specialist turned out to be a surprisingly adept diplomat, getting our parents' green light by personally vouching for us.
Christina asked for a room with twin beds, claiming she tossed and turned at night and would keep me from getting any actual sleep. They even offered to put a folding screen between them, but Christina turned it down, saying that was overkill—it wasn't like she'd be sleeping naked. Besides, having a screen would just make you want to peek behind it, which might fire up someone's imagination—clearly hinting at me—and that was the last thing we needed. After all, we were providing UKARI with data on why the glitch happened, not how to fix it.
They led us into the room. It was pretty ordinary. It looked like a studio apartment straight out of a promo for an elite turn-key residential complex—except without the misleading angles. A classmate of mine had bought one with help from his parents after their wedding, using a state housing certificate, and spent the next six months complaining about it to everyone. Beige walls. Laminate flooring. Two genuine double beds with a low nightstand and a lamp between them. Two brown faux-leather armchairs. A simple fabric couch. Double-layered window drapes: standard sheers paired with heavy blackouts.
No TV, but there was a desktop computer on a small work desk—meant for ordering disposable change-of-clothes and meals if we couldn't or didn't want to cook. They confiscated our phones—or rather, we powered them down and locked them in the storage outside the entrance ourselves.
"Which color do you like better?" Christina was picking out sleepwear for both of us—mostly because I was too lazy to care and perfectly willing to sleep in my street clothes. "Blue or pink?"
"Blue."
"Then I'll take the pink," Christina added the women's pajamas to the order cart and switched to the men's tab.
"Wait, I meant for me," I caught the trick in her question. "I like wearing blue."
"Well, tough luck, you'll just have to endure me in pink. I'm not re-ordering," Christina snickered, scrolling until she found a blue men's pajama set in a style straight out of a retirement home.
"I am not wearing that garbage," I protested, resting a hand on the back of her chair.
"I wasn't actually going to get it, I just..."
"Just what?"
"Just got lost in thought for a second. Are we sure we're not getting scammed here? Are they seriously dropping this kind of money on a couple of high schoolers? It only looks basic on the surface. Touch this," Christina pressed her palm against the wall.
"It's wallpaper," I touched it too.
"It feels amazing."
"Well... yeah, kind of," I agreed, giving the wall a short stroke.
"Wanna bet the fabric on the clothes is way better than whatever you're wearing right now?"
Christina turned out to be right. The clothes arrived, and the quality was top-tier—even though they were explicitly designed to be single-use. The packaging instructed you to pull a cord upon putting them on, which tore the holographic seal of quality clean in half. Even the basic cut fit comfortably without chafing or pinching anywhere.
Christina pinched the fabric of my nightshirt with two fingers, then yanked it to get my attention.
"You know," I said as something from the UKARI pamphlets suddenly clicked in my head. "They're a non-profit organization. They don't cut corners."
"Oh yeah? Then what were those cheap promo samples at the state basket?"
"That was the government cutting corners on us. The private sponsors were the ones handing out luxury cruise vouchers. If you actually tally up where most of our money goes, VIP status might literally be cheaper than paying taxes."
"Okay, that actually makes sense," Christina conceded, finally letting go of her nervousness.
"Want to hear a joke?" Christina's calmness didn't last long. "UKARI asks a couple why they stopped at ten kids. 'Round number?' 'Nope.' 'Out of hands to hold them?' 'Nope.' 'Exhausted?' 'Nope.' 'So what was it?' 'We finally bought a TV.'"
"Ha, classic," I said, catching the clear parallel to our total lack of screen-based entertainment.
"Want dinner?" Christina unpacked a yellow, black-polka-dotted disposable apron and tied it over her pink pajamas.
"Nah, I don't eat late at night," I said. Normally I didn't, but right now I was nowhere near sleepy, so my body still assumed it was daytime. "Then again... I won't say no."
"So, eager to book?" Christina asked, as she pulled eggs, butter, and an onion out of the fridge. "Eager—from the word eagle…"
"Pigle," I rhymed back.
"Oink," Christina snorted, pushing the tip of her nose up with one finger to make a pig snout. "Though last I checked, piglets don't lay eggs, but eagle do."
"These are 100% chicken," I smirked and sprawled across the couch like absolute royalty. "Why are you washing the onion?"
"So my eyes don't sting," Christina shook off the wet onion, slapped it onto the cutting board, grabbed the knife, and split it in half with a quick "Veggie Ninja!" before starting to peel it.
"By the way, I ended up checking out your dad's channel."
Christina froze for a beat, giving me a sharp look from under her brows.
"And that's the end of the story," I deadpanned, cutting off the suspense.
"'So bacon and pork fat walk into a stomach...'" Christina quoted a line from one of his videos, going right back to battling the onion. "Actually, you gave me a great idea. Let's recap movies for each other."
"Why? I mean, not that I'm too lazy, but if you haven't seen it, I'll just spoil the whole plot. And if you have seen it, what's the point?"
"Trust me, listening to someone else summarize a movie makes it sound like you watched two completely different films. Someone described the original Fight Club to me once, and I pictured this grounded indie drama about underground boxing. Then I actually watched it and realized it was a psychological thriller. Then someone else summed it up as 'self-improvement is masturbation,' and I was like, 'Wait, what? Was that actually in the movie?'... But whatever, if you don't feel like it, we can just play word games."
"What kind of genres are you usually into anyway?"
"I'm pretty much omnivorous. Sappy vampires, sci-fi space stuff—you name it. The only thing I don't really care for is TV series. By the time I reach the final episode, I've already forgotten what happened in the pilot."
"Oh, in that case, let me break down Game of Thrones for you. I'm the exact opposite—I love series because you get attached to the characters and just ride the wave."
"Isn't that the one where someone dies in literally every episode?"
"Well, not every single episode, but yeah, pretty often."
Game of Thrones ended up being a total flop, mostly because I confused myself trying to explain all the political backstabbing. Still, it killed enough time until dinner was ready. Christina served up an omelet cooked right inside hollowed-out slices of bread, using the scooped-out centers to make crispy little garlic toasts.
"So, how are we dividing the beds?" Christina yawned, staring down at our empty plates.
"I don't care," I said, fighting off a yawn of my own.
"Me neither. Rock-Paper-Scissors. Winner gets the bed closer to the bathroom, loser gets the window."
"Rock, paper, scissors, shoot—" I threw paper.
Christina threw paper too.
"Shoot—" I beat back my own laziness and threw rock.
Christina threw rock as well, then issued a threat: "One more tie and we're sleeping in the same bed."
"One..." Neither of us had thrown scissors yet. Christina's probably itching to drop them, I thought. "Two..." So she definitely won't throw scissors. If she's threatening me, she thinks I'm trying to counter her, which means... "Three. Paper." I'd meant to throw rock, but messed up and flattened my hand just so my choice matched what I called out.
Christina held out a fist. "Cheating, re-roll," she grumbled. I'd obviously fumbled it.
"One. Two. Three." I threw paper.
Christina threw scissors.
"Alright, now to see who turns off the lights," Christina readied her hand to count again.
"Ugh, fine, I'll get it," I yawned, covering my mouth with my palm. "I've gotta brush my teeth after you anyway."
"Right, teeth," Christina stood up and trudged toward the bathroom.
Did she forget about that? I wondered. Or did she think we were going to brush them together?
Then Christina walked back out with a toothbrush sticking out of her mouth, brushing with one hand while using the other to fix up her bed.
Ah, got it, I thought. Then I caught myself feeling a brief flash of embarrassment—I hadn't even realized at what point I'd started staring at her ass, whether it was when she pulled back the duvet or when she leaned over to fluff her pillow.
"Want me to turn yours down too?" Oblivious to the real reason for my sudden interest, Christina asked, cupping a hand under her chin so she wouldn't drip toothpaste.
"Mm-hmm," I agreed.
Christina walked around to the other side of my bed, which gave me a direct view of her breasts moving beneath the comfortably loose pajama shirt, free of any bra.
She was pretty. Christina was genuinely pretty. If she were my wife, we'd actually make it work. I gave a half-smile at the thought of what would have happened if we'd actually thrown three ties in a row, and how her threat could have been a pretty cute piece of flirting.
Christina caught me watching her all the way back to the bathroom. She kept her eyes locked on me too, without even turning her head.
"Why are you just sitting there?" Christina asked, emerging from the bathroom.
"Lying down right after eating is bad for your digestion," I lied.
Christina climbed into her bed, sat up with a pillow propped behind her back, and pulled the blanket over her legs.
"Ugh," she grimaced. "Forgot they confiscated our phones." She rolled onto her side with her back to me and pulled the duvet completely over her head. "If I fall asleep, uncover my face so I don't suffocate."
"I'll be quick," I said, getting up and walking into the bathroom.
There was only a single toothbrush standing in the tumbler. I opened the medicine cabinet in front of me—shampoo, soap, a large tube of toothpaste, shaving cream, bubble bath, but zero extra toothbrushes.
Well, fortune favors the bold, I thought, grabbing Christina's brush, squeezing out the last drops of paste from a small tube, and getting to work. Technically, I was supposed to feel something—some romantic thrill about an indirect kiss—but mostly I was just worried Christina would wake up tomorrow and unknowingly use a shared toothbrush. Unhygienic. I rushed to finish and rinsed my mouth out. I wiped my face on the white towel hanging off the heated rack, switched off the bathroom light, and stepped out. I hit the main light switch in the room and navigated carefully through the dark toward my bed.
"You asleep?" I asked halfway across the room.
"Not yet," Christina mumbled, pulling the duvet off her face.
"I used your toothbrush, by the way. There wasn't a second one in the cabinet."
"They put disposable ones in the nightstand," Christina answered softly. "Under the sink."
"Who puts toothbrushes under the sink? That's where people stash hand sanitizer," I grumbled, sitting on my bed, brushing off my feet out of habit, and lying back.
"Took me a minute to find them too."
"Whatever. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," Christina rustled around, turning her back to me, but added a minute later: "Kind of weird, isn't it?"
"Mm-hmm," I turned onto my side, facing her bed. "Feels like a train."
"At a station. When the wheels aren't clacking."
"The beds are like first-class sleeper bunks, and the table between us is the train compartment desk."
"It’s too low, but yea kind of…”
I shifted the lamp out from between us.
"Conductor, report to car five," Christina mimicked in a nasal voice over an intercom. "The stop-n-drop train is now arriving at track three."
I smirked and twisted the vibe to match: "The drum-n-bass train has arrived at track four: chugga-chugga choo-choo-choo."
Christina giggled, then suddenly rolled onto her back and let one arm dangle over the edge of her bed. I reached out too, letting my palm brush hers.
Christina jerked her hand back like she'd been hit with a shock, turning her head to stare at me through the dim light in total confusion.
"That was just a high-five," I clarified, starting to realize she might have misread the room. "Or like, hand over the snacks. Chips, garlic toasts, whatever."
"Right," Christina fell back into the thought. "Except then you end up sleeping on a bed full of crumbs."
"Didn't peg you for a train person," I admitted.
"My granddad loves that stuff. When I was little, he used to take me on 'adventures' all the time. I remember riding a train for two whole days just to get ice cream, and then turning right back around."
"Does he have a photo feed?" I slid my hand under my pillow before remembering I'd surrendered my phone and couldn't check out the photos right now. "Did you even like it?"
"The ice cream was mediocre," Christina paused briefly. "The beer was better. I smeared foam on my lip like a mustache."
Christina went on to explain that there was a brewery right near the station in that town. Nothing fancy, but her granddad had a way of selling every tiny trip like it was a quest for El Dorado…